National Associate News

The CFA is introducing a new regular section to the newsletter – National Associate News. This will be the venue for national associate members to announce new products, changes in personnel, and other information of interest to members. National associates should submit their National Associate News news releases to Ed Sauter at esauter@cfawalls.org. CFA reserves the right to condense the releases to 200 words or less.

Durand Forms Appointment Enhances Company’s Position

Durand, Michigan, December 16, 2002— Durand Forms, Inc., a leading aluminum form manufacturer in Durand, Michigan, has announced the appointment of Philip W. Fearnow as Vice President, Sales & Marketing, as well as three new regional manager positions. Fearnow’s experience includes manufacturing, corporate sales and technical services in the area of chemicals, explosives and pre-cast concrete. Fearnow’s initial efforts will be working and visiting with Durand distributors and customers to enhance their poured […]

Outsourcing Services – A Practical Alternative for Any Business

Large and small companies alike are seeing more value in outsourcing services as the demand for professional expertise increases and employee base and payroll budgets decrease. “Outsourcing” as defined by the Outsourcing Institute of New York is “the strategic use of outside resources to perform activities traditionally handled by internal staff and resources.” A premier building products company executive says “we outsource services because they specialize in areas that we don’t and […]

New Control Joint System Available

MAR-FLEX® has announced the introduction of a new system to reduce random cracks in concrete foundations. This is accomplished by creating vertical control joints on both sides of the foundation wall. Shrinkage cracking is confined to the control joint area and the outside control joint is sealed to make it waterproof and watertight. MAR-FLEX offers this economical and easy to use system with an additional cost estimated to […]

2002-2003 Residential Construction Market Outlook

Condensed from FMI Annual Construction Outlook Publication The U.S. single family residential construction sector of the construction market increased from $235.9 billion in 2000 to $246.5 billion in 2001. This 4% growth is the lowest annual increase in single-family construction since 1997. The value of construction put in place was expected to decrease 1% in 2002 and increase 3% in 2003. Forecasts are more optimistic for 2004 with […]

Foundation Contractor Wall Survey

The CFA Questionnaire received an excellent return with 53 of our contractor members responding. It will take quite some time to sort through all of the results but some of the easier to-tabulate summaries are listed below. These are based on the 53 returned questionnaires – not on the full membership. Number of basements poured in 2002: 12,467 Number of basements in past 10 […]

Saldana Concrete Profile

As the first poured wall contractor in the St. Cloud, Minn. area, Mark Saldana quickly realized the battle his company would face in changing perceptions and battling the region’s traditional construction methods. But, through ingenuity and persistence – as well as assistance from fellow CFA members – Saldana has quickly built a market for poured walls in Minnesota. Originally a block foundation company with roots dating back to 1987, Saldana Concrete, […]

Sign-Up for Spring Foundation Fundamentals

The Foundation Fundamentals seminar will return to the Midwest for the Spring of 2003. The Holiday Inn Select in Strongsville, Ohio (near Cleveland) will host the seminar on Saturday, April 12, 2003. A seminar for building officials will be held on Friday, April 11, concurrent with the CFA committee and board meeting. If you have a building official you would like to attend, let us know and we […]

CFA Unveils Web Site Improvements

A visit to the Internet today doesn’t take very long before you see a myriad of ways companies are reaching out to their visitors to make their websites more user friendly and efficient. The Concrete Foundations Association has initiated steps to make significant improvements to the CFA web site, www.cfawalls.org, over this past year. If you haven’t visited in a while, I encourage you to do so. Over the […]